July 14, 2014
Bailey (At the Jerusalem) does more with less in this short, but moving, coming-of-age novel. Narrator Dinu Grigorescu’s mature perspective on events 40 years after they take place serve as the basis for a “memoir of a life half-lived.” Dinu, a 19-year-old aspiring writer, travels to France from his native Bucharest in 1927; an early reference to his being “green in the ways of flesh and the complexities of human intercourse” telegraphs that this will be an important part of his education. Sure enough, only three weeks after his arrival in Paris, he crosses paths with “the prince’s boy,” Razvan Popescu, who is in fact now an older man but was indeed adopted in his childhood by a prince. The remainder of the book follows the love affair between the two men and Razvan’s instruction to Dinu in the “ways of the world.” The basic elements of the story line, which extends into the 1930s and the beginning of WWII, are familiar—Grigorescu’s mother, for example, warns him that his sexual orientation is a pathway straight to hell. But the rich characters and the supple prose make it far more than the sum of its parts. Agent: David Miller, Rogers, Coleridge & White. (U.K.)
August 15, 2014
Two Romanian men find true love in 1920s Paris in this slim novel from the prolific British author (Chapman's Odyssey, 2012, etc.). A fairy tale emerges from flashbacks. In 1900, a prince was riding through the Romanian countryside when he noticed an 11-year-old peasant boy. With his mother's consent, he adopted him and moved him to Paris. Thus, Razvan Popescu became the titular prince's boy. The prince was no sexual predator; his project was to refine the boy into a cultured gentleman, and he succeeded, but we learn nothing of the prince's heart, and this is a troubling gap. When the novel begins, it's 1927. The narrator, Dinu Grigorescu, 19, has just arrived in Paris. His father, Cezar, a wealthy Bucharest lawyer, is bankrolling his long vacation. The virginal Romanian visits a male brothel, where Razvan is an improbable employee. (The prince has killed himself after a disfiguring stroke, but his boy still has the apartment.) Love strikes like lightning; Razvan quits the brothel to devote himself to Dinu. Any sleaziness is obscured by pleasing circumlocutions; Bailey shows the light touch of an Armistead Maupin in this first section. What follows is messier, with too many plot developments for so short a tale. Returning to Bucharest, Dinu finds he's gained a stepmother. Amalia proves an ally, calming Cezar's rage on discovering his son's sexual orientation. His father has become an anti-Semite, reflecting Romania's poisonous new preoccupation. Eventually, at the suggestion of a persecuted Jewish professor, the two leave Romania for good; in Paris, Razvan is still waiting patiently for his Dinu. The lovers are faithful, compatible, with no material worries, and yet, without foreshadowing, Dinu experiences unexplained "bouts of despair," while Razvan professes a "longing for death." The darkness doesn't feel earned. A love story coexists uneasily with the rise of fascism.
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June 15, 2014
In spring 1927, sensitive young Romanian Dinu Grigorescu is sent to Paris for a summer of polish and refinement in the hopes that he will finally get over the loss of his mother, begin to write his great novel, and gain some needed maturity. Instead, sequestered in his bohemian garret, Dinu discovers the works of Marcel Proust and recklessly surrenders to his lustful taste for men. Bravely seeking out a male brothel, he falls under the spell of fellow Romanian Razvan Popescu, and the two embark on a passionate affair. At summer's end, Dinu returns home, suffering the enforced separation from his beloved and the fear of discovery. Looking back years later, he recounts his lover's tale--Razvan's improbable rise from humble beginnings to a life of wealth--and the reverse trajectory after Razvan's noble benefactor dies suddenly. VERDICT Recalling the breathless intensity of Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain and Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name, Bailey's accomplished new novel, set against the backdrop of prewar Europe, will beguile most fiction readers.--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
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